Raising Their Voices – From Fall 2011 into Winter 2012, four critically acclaimed ASCAP songwriter/artists donated songs to the Tar Sands Action for videos supporting this pivotal environmental cause. These songs are now the MAKE A NOISE EP released by NewSong Recordings (member 1% for the Planet) on June 6th 2012 at the Sustainable Brands Conference in San Diego.

Four more songs were added in time for the February 17 #ForwardOnClimate Rally in DC & September 21 #DrawTheLine actions.

We spoke to Tar Sands Action/350.org videographer and the nine ASCAP song donors to see what their inspiration was and how they felt about bringing voice to the movement.

Steve Liptay, Videoprapher, Tar Sands Action: The grassroots effort to stop Keystone XL, a 1,700-mile tar sands pipeline that would transport one of the planet’s dirtiest fossil fuels from Alberta, Canada to refineries on the Texas coast, has united and ignited the environmental movement. The Tar Sands Action campaign, now part of 350 .org, started when a broad coalition of organizations and environmental leaders came together in August 2011 to lead an historic civil disobedience action at the White House in which over 1,200 people were arrested.

In the months following, as activists across the United States and Canada continued to voice opposition to the pipeline, Keystone became a major political issue for the Obama administration. As public awareness grew so did the campaign to stop the pipeline and after 10,000 people converged to circle the White House on November 6, President Obama decided to delay his decision to approve or reject the project until 2013. By January 2012, however, the administration had officially rejected the permit to build Keystone XL. None-the-less, the Keystone "Zombie Pipeline" continues to rear its ugly face and the fight to stop it is very much alive. Stay tuned at 350.org for new developments.

The songs donated by ASCAP members Katie Herzig, Chris Velan, Todd Henkin and Arthur Alligood allow us to cross-pollinate their powerful music with powerful images in videos that spread the word about Keystone. With so many big battles to come we hope these artists and others continue to share their music with the movement and help us activate and inspire the grassroots on our path to solving the climate crisis. Katie, Chris, Todd and Arthur, thank you so, so much!

KS Rhoads: This song came from a place of frustration and anger about my feelings of powerlessness in society. It amazes me that even in our modern world there is more or less a ruling class that makes and breaks the rules as it so chooses. And in all these invisible ways we get stuck serving that class. The title line is based on the opening line in Rousseau's "The Social Contract" where he says "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains."

David Berkeley: I write a lot about the weather. I like when a song can reveal a landscape and trigger more senses than just sound. Lately the weather has been pretty scary. I live in New Mexico, and water is on my brain every day. I grew up in New Jersey where Sandy's impact is still visible. I got married in Vermont right along the path of the flooding from Irene. I've been blown away (perhaps poor word choice) by some of the recent weather events, be they tornadoes or floods or fires. Whether or not one believes that humans have had a cause in their increased severity and frequency, we can, I think, at least agree that our behavior has made the consequences of severe weather more drastic and damaging.

Hopefully we can change our behavior and reverse some bad trends. If not, then maybe we should feel small and humble on the face of a vast planet, under an enormous and sometimes threatening sky. And if that's the case, we're left to hold on to each other, taking the best care we can of those we love. That’s what "Song for the Road" is about. It’s meant to roll in like a storm. It threatens to wash us away. But in the end, the storm rolls out again, and we're still standing. It’s done some damage, no doubt. But it hasn't destroyed what matters most.

Tom Burris: It is so heartening to see the evidence of a vast community of people across all walks of life who understand the challenges we are facing and who share a sense of the rational path forward. I wrote this song about that moment when, out of overwhelming need, like-mindedness, and the hard work of a (relatively) few, a community rises up, forms like Voltron, and changes things for good.

LISTEN HERE: Find Tom Burris' music on Spotify

"DESPERATE TIMES"

Jim Infantino: I write songs that I think stand a chance of jarring people just enough to get a fresh look at the world around them. Sometimes I try to do this with humor, sometimes, just by telling the plainest truth I know how to tell. I wrote Desperate Times after hanging around a folk festival all weekend realizing I hadn't heard a single song about ordinary folks. Songs have the power to open our hearts and open our minds, or they have the power to distract and insulate us. Having heard so many of the latter and too few of the former, I fell into a songwriter's despair, and wrote it all down. Now it seems the issue is bigger. We have the power of distraction not only from our music, which we can plug into non-stop, but also from our socio-networks and 'smart' phones. I'm no hermit, I do it too. But while we lose ourselves in our media slumberland, our one true home is becoming uninhabitable. It's time we rouse ourselves from our cocoons for at least some of the day, in order to try to change the direction our ship is sailing.

Sandra McCracken: 'Dynamite' explores the themes of desire at the most basic human level. When you run after something, when you really want something, that can be a good and noble thing, or it can be self-centered. And at some point, your desire is going to intersect with somebody else’s, and that’s where relationships come into play. It's about exploring the human story by way of that theme, interwoven with our response to the earth and conservation. I’ve tried to put an appropriate lament in this song, but also a very real, palpable experience of hope.

Katie Herzig: I worry a lot about the state of the environment. About the ways we abuse this planet, and essentially ourselves. Sometimes I feel like I spend more time worrying though than doing something about it. I think a lot of us feel that way. I wrote this song encouraging me/us to look around us and speak out about what we see. I truly believe we all want the best for ourselves, and each other. But it really takes guts to speak out for these things we believe in, to feel the power of our own voices. I'm happy that this song would be a part of something proactive and really important.

Arthur Alligood: My song "Darkness to Light" showed up one morning this past fall. Many times for me songs come out of nowhere, and at first seem to have little to do with my own life experience. It's usually after living with the song for a while that I begin to see my own story there. Being a father of three young daughters, I think a lot about the state of the world and what things will be like when they're my age. "Darkness to Light" is a song of hope, the hope that the wrongs will one day be made right. I think each one of us has a role to play in such a restoration. Love for all creation has to be our starting place.

Chris Velan: As a Canadian artist, I've found myself increasingly unable to recognize myself in the country we've become under our current government, which, in its zeal to develop the tar sands, has willfully squandered Canada's reputation as an environmental leader. So, when the Tar Sands Action sprang up as a grassroots movement in the U.S., I felt a strong need to contribute - especially since it's my country that's causing the damage. I wrote "Not Ours to Lose" with a wishful hope that we might yet wake up from this feverish dream of carbon dependency before it's too late. A song is just a song but I hope it can help in some small way.

Todd Henkin, The Great Unknown: Our song came to life in a classroom full of dancing, vibrant, poetic teenagers. We sang of a belief in human ability that these students rightly feel is limitless. 'Last night I had a dream of new inventions, agree to disagree, what will power it all?' Humanity has never been so inventive and self-destructive. Do we deserve to strive for beauty? What will power it all? A willingness to use our creativity for good and to speak out against what's wrong. Growth and positivity is worth the strain of a raised voice, in song and in protest.

Written and performed with the America SCORES students of FDR Middle School

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And then I rose to the top of the world
and saw that I was blessed
I saw that it was built on the backs of the poor and the oppressed
I saw this endless spinning
Of ending up back at the beginning
Of headlong races to where we sat
But oh the places we could go if the world was flat
And I was tired and defeated
With nothing turned out as I thought
But if I always do what I've always done then I'll only get what I always got
I saw the masses yawning stolen breaths
That they might breath the next
Tall drinks, queen ants and half mast cigarettes
The same lives the same pain
Lay like embers in the rain
And I saw all things invisible that bind me
Lady luck was smiling but it was at the guy behind me
Green and brown girls of the sea
Take me, but don't ever wake me

You want to be free
You want to be free
You want to be free
Why are you living in Chains?

And I saw my supposed enemy
But I looked exactly like him
I saw the boat was sinking
So I got out and learned how to swim
I saw the sorrow of the centuries
In sulfur smoke from the stacks
I saw bullets being buried in our old man's backs
I saw the poetry of the prophets
And they wallpapered over it, they did
The same words written years ago on the back of my eyelids
I saw tax collectors as national protectors
Tables being turned, books being burned, and bodies washing in from the sea

You want to be free
You want to be free
You want to be free
Why are you living in Chains?

You can change into a bird
With nothing but a word
You want to be free
Why are you living in Chains?

You want to be free
You want to be free
You want to be free
Why are you living in Chains?

Track Name: Jim Infantino - Desperate Times

Let me tell you something
all the kids I know say there's no one
who will deal with the problems that are closing in around them
they turn on the radio, it's some regurgitated pop
or some 30 year old love song that was written for their parents
don't come singing about her hair by the window
or her eyes in the moonlight or her kisses in the morning
I don't need another song about the ocean of your love for a sweater
that you gave to your boyfriend - these
these are desperate times
pay attention look up and read the signs
believe
these are desperate times

all the grown ups say that all the best music
was written 20 years ago in their generation
well we've had another 20 years of devastation on this planet
made real by a nation being lulled into submission
shut up! I don't care about the dress that she wore
when she walked through the forest on the cool summer evening
I've had it up to here with all these feel good ditties
about how life would be much better if we'd ignore all the problems - these
these are desperate times
pay attention look up and read the signs
believe
these are desperate times

all around the world the guns are being cocked
and they're pointed at the others caught staring at our table
well drink up americans because the time is running out
before the picture gets flipped and we're all looking down the barrel - these
these are desperate times
pay attention look up and read the signs
believe
these are desperate times - these
these are desperate times
pay attention look up and read the signs
believe
these are desperate times

Track Name: Katie Herzig - Make A Noise

"Make A Noise"
Words and Music by Katie Herzig
--------------------------------------

Look up
You see the sky on fire
Look out
The water's getting higher, now

Believe, that you can change the world
Your dreams, have been living in a code of silence
So let them out

Find your voice, find your voice
Make a noise

You try, to find the words you want to say
You might, be looking much too far away
To recognize, we’re all disguised

Find your voice, find your voice
Make a noise

Oh, we all were born before the war, but worlds collide
Look at all the people fighting for the same side
We all were born before the war, but worlds collide
You can’t have the peace you’re looking for without a fight

Oh, we all were born before the war, but worlds collide
(You see the sky on fire)
Look at all the people fighting for the same side
(The water's getting higher)

Oh, we all were born before the war, but worlds collide
(You see the sky on fire)
If you see the world you want more, then make it right
(The water's getting higher)

You see the sky on fire
The water's getting higher
[repeat]

Find your voice
Make a noise…

Don't run away run away…
Don't run away
Don't run away run away…
Don't run away

Track Name: Arthur Alligood - Darkness To Light

Darkness to Light
Words and Music by Arthur Alligood
------------------------------------------

I'm waiting for the morning
Waiting in the night
When that sun comes over the mountain
She gonna turn this darkness to light

Now its been a long throw
since we first took to this soil
We found an itch to scratch real quick
and called it war
All this fighting it ain't nothing, but
a symptom of our sickness
and we still ain't found a cure

We keep walking down that same path
that worn out, crooked way
Stepping over all of history's little tracks
Falling it don't come first
pride will push you to the edge
and once you start falling
can you ever go back?

How do we answer our children
when they wonder what went wrong?
Do we scratch our heads and tell them
no one know really knows why?
Do we go back to a garden, a perfect little world
to two lovers who couldn't keep it right?
credits
from One Silver Needle, released 25 April 2012

Track Name: Chris Velan - Not Ours To Lose

Not Ours To Lose
Words and Music by Chris Velan
------------------------------------

We’re all outside your house tonight
We’re wondering where you went
No time for left delusion
The money’s all been spent

And the dinosaurs behind closed doors
Seem to have your ear
But we’re still here

Dark storm clouds are forming
Over the land reason’s end
And we all feel the heat
But still they’re trying to defend

Every hour on phantom power
As if it’s going to last
But it’s going fast

CHORUS
Does your mind know that much
Do your eyes see that far
Do you speak for generations
With the risks being what they are

Can you leave it the ground
Or will you help to light the fuse
This world’s not ours
This world’s not ours
This world is not ours to lose

Which master do you bow to
Whose interest it in
Does money buy the outcome
Is the fix already in
Do you represent a few
Or do you represent us all
It’s your call

Those who reap the benefits
Will die happy and blind
To any harm they cause or
To the mess they left behind

History will wonder
How we knew it all along
We still chose wrong

Does your mind know that much
Do your eyes see that far
Do you speak for generations
With the risks being what they are
Can you leave it the ground
Or will you help to light the fuse

This world’s not ours
This world’s not ours
This world is not ours to lose

BRIDGE
Miles of dirty veins
Pumping dead blood through the planes
Leave us strung out
Like a junkie who is lost

Are we so insane
So selfish to complain
That we have a right to progress
At all cost

Does your mind know that much
Do your eyes see that far
Do you speak for generations
With the risks being what they are
Can you leave it the ground
Or will you help to light the fuse
‘Cause this world’s not ours to lose

Does your mind know that much
Do your eyes see that far
Do you speak for generations
With the risks being what they are
Can you leave it the ground
Or will you help to light the fuse

This world’s not ours
This world’s not ours
This world is not ours to lose

This world’s not ours
This world’s not ours
This world is not ours to lose

Track Name: Todd Henkin - What Will Power It All

What Will Power It All

Written by The Great Unknown and the America SCORES students of FDR Middle School, Boston, MA; ALL lyrics by the kids, arranged by & music by The Great Unknown